


I Will Lead You Home

by orphan_account



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining, Renee Montoya: third wheel, Soft Helena, The others are all in here but only in tiny amounts so not tagging them, Viginette, and they were ROOMMATES
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24197020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Dinah falls in love with all the little things. (Or, almost 9.5K of Helena being softer than she seems).
Relationships: Helena Bertinelli/Dinah Lance
Comments: 26
Kudos: 268





	I Will Lead You Home

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the burps for keeping me going (and Carl for not letting me delete this). Thanks to Eva for the inspiration behind that one scene. Thanks to J for being the best beta reader. Thanks to these characters for keeping me sane during this ridiculous time.

Dinah’s attracted to her from the moment she sees her. It would be impossible not to be: the woman is all muscle. She’s tall, and mysterious, and fucking _hot_ , and basically all the characteristics of every damn person - male or female - that has ever broken Dinah’s heart. She watches Helena stab a man multiple times without even pausing for breath, and she can’t stop herself from staring. It’s instinctive.

It’s what comes after that that surprises her.

Her initial assessment had been right: Helena definitely has rage issues. But her social awkwardness runs much deeper than that. Where it might have been infuriating on somebody else - all the missed cues, and having to explain every sarcastic comment, not to mention how blunt and inappropriate she could be - Dinah finds it endearing when it comes to Helena. (Renee, on the other hand, does not, and has an extremely short fuse, but then that’s not exclusive to Helena. She also has rage issues. Hell, they probably all do).

In honesty, it’s the juxtaposition of this woman who can kill a man with one focussed flick of her wrist, but who also has such childlike tendencies, that really has Dinah captivated by her. How Helena can be simultaneously hardened and bitter, and naively innocent... well, if she didn’t know all about the assassin’s past (her family’s massacre, the remote Sicilian village she’d grown up in whilst the rest of the world thought her dead, the fact she was raised by the same men who had trained to take out her family... honestly, she’d thought her own life was pretty fucked up but Helena won that prize, hands down) she would have been completely baffled by Helena’s whole existence.

In truth, she still kind of is.

Spending time in close proximity with her just brings on surprise after surprise. Like, for example, the fact that she routinely forgets the English words for things, and mutters to herself in Italian or whatever instead. She gets this cute little frowny expression on her face that looks like it should belong to one of the emojis Harley insists on sending them all, not an actual real life human being, let alone an assassin.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

-

They wind up spending a lot of time at Renee’s, an apartment that, in short, looks like a cop’s place. Cheap, mismatching furniture, a drab colour scheme, and a leather couch that is so worn, one of the cushions is permanently shaped to fit its owner’s ass - it’s clear no one has ever actually spent any time there. The first time they all wind up in her living room, there’s a mountain of case-files on the other seat, and Helena actually ends up sitting on the floor.

Renee’s kitchen is also only home to one of everything, so they can only ever order take-out that doesn’t require cutlery or plates.

Still, it’s a pretty good place to go to wind down after a fight.

They get to know each other over shared bottles of wine and greasy pizza slices, usually at least one of them borrowing Renee’s first-aid kit to clean up their war wounds. Sometimes the tv is on - usually a crappy old movie - but most of the time they sit in silence besides each other’s voices and the occasional crackle of Renee’s police radio which she definitely should have given back.

Conversation usually goes like this: Renee complaining about her aches and pains, and the state of the city, and how nobody else on the police force has ever given a fuck; Dinah complimenting the others on their fight moves, or worrying over Cass; and Helena sitting quietly, only occasionally adding information here and there, or awkwardly laughing at something that isn’t supposed to be funny.

After a few weeks of this, though, things start to change. Extra kitchen equipment appears - not just bowls and plates and cutlery, but cooking pots and a proper cafetière and even a pasta strainer. One night, she drives Renee home, and Dinah’s smoking on the front porch when Helena arrives with a bag full of groceries. She stubs out her cigarette and follows her inside, intrigued.

“What the fuck is all of this?” Renee demands as Helena begins to unpack loose vegetables, a bag of fresh pasta, and little jars and bottles of herbs and spices and oils.

“Real food,” Helena explains, bluntly, “I am done eating greasy American shit.”

“Pizza is Italian,” Renee mutters, grabbing for the bottle of red in the brown bag on the counter, and flinching when Helena tugs it out of her grasp. 

“That garbage is not pizza.”

Grumbling under her breath, Renee disappears into the living room, knowing better than to argue. Helena moves around the kitchen the same way she fights: every movement fluid and full of purpose, precise. After a moment of watching her - body leaning against the counter, eyes following Helena’s every movement, bottom lip between her teeth - Dinah slides in next to where she’s preparing vegetables. She takes a knife from Renee’s wooden block (the only part of the kitchen that’s always been fully stocked), and rolls a tomato towards herself.

“What are you doing?” Helena glares.

The corner of her mouth turning up into a smirk, Dinah begins to slice, “helping.”

After that, they only order take out when they’re too completely beat to cook. It turns out they make just as good a team in the kitchen as they do in a fight. And Helena’s one hell of a chef.

-

One night, after they’re done with the dishes, and their stomachs are full, their bodies in that place between total restlessness and sleep - they’ll crash on Renee’s couch; they’ve done it so many times before - Helena winds up with her head in Dinah’s lap. She’s not sure how it happened, but it feels natural, Renee already asleep in her chair, and Dinah running her fingers languidly through Helena’s dark waves of hair as they watch TV. She traces over a small braid at Helena’s temple, and the assassin twitches, turning her face to look up at Dinah’s, eyes so dark they’re barely readable. She thinks about kissing her. She could dip her head, and cover Helena’s mouth from here, brush her lips over the place where the skin is split from the fight, kiss away that little frown between her eyebrows. 

But she doesn’t, and eventually they both fall asleep.

-

It doesn’t take long for Dinah to wind up completely broke. It turns out that being a vigilante doesn’t pay the bills, and she can’t hold down a regular singing job all the while she’s spending the nights taking down the scum of Gotham. Being as proud as she is, she doesn’t tell the others outright. She knows Renee’ll try to help out (the woman still feels some kind of guilt over what happened to Dinah’s mother over a decade ag, and whilst that might have been Dinah’s intention when they first met, it sure as hell isn’t now. And sides, she doesn’t have a job now either), and she can’t bear to explain to Helena Bertinelli of the fucking Bertinelli Fortune that she barely has twelve dollars to her name. She debates trying to get a daytime job, but with little to nothing on her resume, and her only previous employer blown into a thousand pieces in the middle of nowhere, she doesn’t think she’ll get very far with that either. It’s not like she has the time to really look for anything else.

So, ok, she can’t make rent, but she’ll figure something out. She always has. And if not, she’s got her car back from Harley, so she could sleep there. It wouldn’t be the first time.

She knows there’s something up with Helena the second the other woman arrives at her door. Firstly, it’s day time, and they have no plans to hang out. Helena seems to run on a rigid routine, and spontaneity is a word she is unfamiliar with. The few times Dinah’s arrived at hers unannounced - one time with breakfast, another time to drag her out shopping, both as unsuccessful attempts at striking up friendship outside of their vigilante shtick - it’s been met with grumpiness. Dinah has a feeling if it were anyone but her it might have been downright rage.

That’s not the only indicator though. 

Helena is awkward. It doesn’t take a PHD to notice that about her. Today, she’s being particularly weird - not making eye contact, pacing up and down in front of Dinah’s couch, clenching and unclenching her fists. Around Dinah, she’s usually at least a little less... panicky. It’s like an unspoken agreement between them, the way Dinah can understand every little mannerism and stutter of words in a way that nobody else can. But apparently not today.

“Okay, sit down. That rug is threadbare enough without you pacing a hole into it,” Dinah tells her, leaning across the flimsy counter that separates her kitchen area from her living area. “What’s up?”

Helena lowers herself onto the couch as if it might break under her weight, takes a deep breath and says “will you move in with me?”

“Easy killer - you’re supposed to take a girl out for dinner first,” Dinah teases, but her voice comes out too breathy, too soft.

“I am?” Helena asks, her brow furrowed, “but we’ve been out for dinner. Was I supposed to ask then?”

“No, I was just... never mind. Why are you asking?”

“I don’t want to live in a motel anymore, and now I have the— my family’s money, so I want something nice, but I’m not used to, uh, having a lot of space, and I used to live with people back in Sicily and...”

It’s obvious from the way Helena won’t quite meet her eye, the monotone way in which she starts to answer, that she’s been practicing this for quite some time, working up the courage to ask. She looks so damn adorable, fumbling her way through the list of reasons.

“And uh, I know that you probably can’t afford this apartment for much longer since you... don’t have a job.”

Dinah’s instinct is to scoff at that, to tell Helena she doesn’t need her pity or her charity. That it’s none of her business. It’s difficult, when you’re so used to being hardened, used to having to put up this mask... remembering how to not be that way.

“Shit, that came out wrong. I would really like you to live with me. If you.... uh would also like that,” Helena finishes, clumsily. She scratches at her neck, purposely continuing to look away from Dinah, probably awaiting rejection.

Twisting her mouth into a small smile, Dinah takes a split second to think it over. Or at least pretend to.

“Sure,” she says, after a beat, and the way Helena’s whole face lights up makes her heart flutter in her chest. Just for a moment, before her expression is forced serious again.

God this woman is beginning to be a problem.

-

Renee helps them move in. Most impressively, she doesn’t make a single comment about them living together except to tell Dinah that she thinks it’ll be good for them both to not be alone. Maybe the ex-cop doesn’t see right through her after all.

Between them, they don’t have all that much in terms of belongings. 80% of what Helena owns appears to be weaponry, and Dinah, used to having to fit everything she owns into a single duffle-bag in the trunk of her car, isn’t much better. 

(They do have a fully stocked kitchen, though.)

The first night, they eat dinner on the floor of the living room, using the mismatching plates that used to belong to Dinah’s mother, that she’s carefully transported from place to place for the last ten years, and toasting to the new apartment with beer.

They stay up late, talking, and, after much debate, they eventually go to sleep on a shared mattress on the floor in the room that’s going to be Helena’s, snuggled under a comforter from Dinah’s old apartment. They’ve both slept in worse places.

(Though they fall asleep facing away from each other, when Dinah wakes in the morning, Helena’s hair is tickling her nose, and her body is curved around the other woman’s, almost protectively, and they’re touching at three different points).

-

Living together reveals a whole host of surprising information about Helena, softer parts of the assassin that she’s clearly kept hidden from view. There’s a level of trust between them now that goes unsaid, marked by tiny moments and off-hand comments, inconsequential to anybody else, but things that make Dinah feel warm with the honour of being allowed into Helena’s life.

Things that she knows better than to ever mention to Renee for fear of Helena flying off the handle. 

(Things that she wouldn’t want to share anyway, just happy to have them to herself, little secret moments just shared by the two of them.)

She learns that Helena sleeps in pastel tank tops and flannel pyjama pants, that she can’t stand American coffee, and prefers a glass of milk in the mornings. She learns that whilst Huntress favours black and purple and leather, Helena is most comfortable in greys and soft knit fabrics, and clothes that let her blend in. 

Most shocking of all, is the soft singing that Dinah hears coming from the shower one morning, Helena’s voice delicate and melodic, though the words are lost, a language Dinah doesn’t know. It’s a voice that she could get lost in, pretty and soothing and not at all what she expected.

-

Helena wants to just buy all their furniture from IKEA and get it over and done with.

Actually, she presents the idea in a way that is so adorable and clueless that Dinah almost says yes. Almost.

“I’ve been, uh, researching and there’s this Swedish company that sell everything we need and they could deliver it tomorrow. It comes with instructions so you can put it together at home. Look,” she turns her laptop screen towards Dinah, and the way she looks so pleased with herself, Dinah doesn’t have the heart to tell her that literally _everyone_ knows IKEA.

They’ve been putting a list together of what they’re missing, and Dinah’s already commented on how ridiculously neat Helena’s handwriting is, loopy, like a teenage girl’s. Helena had mumbled something about learning cursive in fourth grade, clearly embarrassed, but it was endearing, her writing looking nothing like how Dinah would have assumed.

Now, Dinah has the pen, and she’s frowning over the list whilst Helena adds items to a basket on the IKEA website. She does so with the same intense scrutiny with which she undertakes all tasks, her eyes slowly scanning the page.

“This minimalistic flat-pack shit isn’t really my vibe, H,” Dinah says, putting the notepad down between them. 

“No, no, it says here that I K E A—“ she pronounces each letter individually and it takes all of the strength Dinah has not to laugh out loud at her, “—sell things for _every_ home. They even have a pasta maker.”

“ _You_ have a pasta maker, already.”

Helena doesn’t respond, just keeps looking.

Dinah’s reluctant to argue, considering it’s Helena’s place, according to the paperwork, Helena’s money paying for their furniture. But she’s not sure she can stand to live somewhere that looks like a showroom. Besides, she can probably scrape together enough money for a second hand bed frame, a dresser to replace the one her ex had painted, that she’d left behind at her old apartment. She’ll find a job, and then she can grab a few more bits from thrift stores and flea markets.

“I think it’d be good to look other places too, though...” she tries.

Helena stops pensively scrolling, and digs around in the pocket of her pants, sliding something across the floor to her, before continuing. As soon as Dinah realises what it is, she hands the credit card back.

“That’s not what I mean. I just thought we could go looking together, pick out some stuff with a bit of character, stuff that’ll make it a little more homely. There’s a great little used furniture store a few blocks away from here we could check out.”

Glancing between her laptop screen, and Dinah, Helena considers. “But these things will arrive tomorrow.”

“Yeah, and we can get stuff from the store _today_. Give you a chance to flex those muscles, carrying it up the stairs,” she teases, playfully punching Helena’s arm. “But if you’d prefer the delivery, that’s cool too. I can just get stuff for my own room...”

“No!” Helena says, a little too quickly, and her cheeks flush ever so slightly as she back tracks, tries to gather her words. “I’d like to go to the place you suggested.”

(They have to do three trips to get all the stuff they buy back to the apartment, and Dinah is suddenly glad that her car is so small, because it means watching Helena load it and unload it three times. Not only is it a guns show, but she loves the gentleness in Helena’s movements, how carefully she goes about the task of carrying their items in safely. They have to carry the bigger furniture in together, and there’s something about the ease with which they do it - no need to talk, just communicating in gestures - that is reminiscent of how they fight together. How easily and quickly they anticipate each others movements).

-

The singing continues. Only in moments where Helena doesn’t know she can be heard, and always in another language.

-

“I love that you do that,” Dinah says, one night whilst they’re getting ready to meet Renee.

They’re both in the bathroom, using the mirror; Dinah applying gold eyeshadow, Helena carefully braiding a part of her hair. She has a look of deep concentration on her features, despite the fact she’s had this exact hair style on every single occasion that they fight together, but it falters at Dinah’s words, her fingers letting go of the strands of hair, and a curse falling from her mouth.

She scoops the hair up again, starts from the top. Dinah looks away.

“It’s practical.” Helena says after a beat of silence. “It keeps it out of my face.”

Of course there’s a logical reason. Dinah smiles to herself as she finishes up her eyes, risking a glance at Helena’s reflection, only to find the other woman’s dark eyes focussed on her. Despite the fact they’ve long since grown used to sharing space, there’s a tension there that is unexpected, that leaves her with a dizzying feeling, and Dinah looks away.

“Why do you never put your hair up? I see it get in your way all the time.”

Dinah pauses, before continuing to put away the jars and palettes she’s been using, careful not to touch Helena. Usually, she doesn’t like to answer questions about her hair, especially from white women who don’t understand and probably think it’s dirty and unkept, but there’s a genuine curiosity in the way Helena asks. She never asks anything unless she actually wants to understand the answer.

“It’s bad for it, if I do it too much,” Dinah says, shrugging her shoulders, tugging the zipper of her make up bag closed. “Learnt my lesson from Harley, though,” she adds, pinging the hair tie on her wrist.

They continue to put things away in an easy silence which she has begun to associate with their co-living. It’s odd because she’s never enjoyed silence, always been the kind to drive with the radio blaring, to have the TV on even when she’s not watching it, but she finds she doesn’t mind silence when it’s with Helena. Driving Sionis around in perfect silence had driven her near insane, but the quiet feels natural here.

She’s about to leave the bathroom when Helena clears her throat, and she pauses to look at her.

“My mom taught me how to braid and I think if I don’t keep doing it I might forget how and I already don’t quite remember what she sounded like, or what perfume she wore, or what her favourite colour was so.... I don’t want to forget.”

Dinah’s mouth goes dry, a lump forming in the back of her throat, and it’s like maybe she’s forgotten every single word in her vocabulary. Maybe it’s because she’s not used to Helena sharing anything so raw and secret, or maybe it’s recognition, the realisation that they are more alike than they’ve acknowledged. She blinks back a tear that threatens to leak from her eyes, boxes up that emotion and instead steps toward, touching Helena’s shoulder, gently but deliberately, like you’d touch a stray cat, afraid that it might run.

She doesn’t say anything, but Helena nods in understanding, another silent moment between them that’s just theirs. Dinah squeezes her shoulder and lets go, heads back to her bedroom.

“Better hustle or Renee’ll be on our asses for being late.”

-

She had thought that maybe, with time, the attraction she’s felt since the moment they met would die down, that maybe having Helena as a flatmate would begin to be irritating.

It doesn’t. If anything, she finds a whole load of new things to admire about her, spends more time than she thought possible learning all the little things about her that nobody else knows.

That’s not to say they don’t bicker. They do. They bicker about which drawer kitchen utensils belong in, and whose turn it is to do the dishes. They even argue about television shows that they’re not even invested in, and mundane shit that everybody who shares a space with somebody else has argued about at some point.

It’s nice. Dinah hasn’t shared a home with anybody in years and she thought she liked living alone, but there’s something about getting home to an apartment that’s warm and alive with the sound of somebody else that is comforting in a way she’d forgotten. She likes sharing their space. She likes the image of all of Helena’s tiny bottles of store-brand hair stuff, neatly organised right next to the huge bottles of exotic smelling shampoos and conditioners used to treat her own hair. She likes the fact that sometimes they’ll do laundry together and she won’t be able to tell which plain black socks are hers and which are Helena’s.

They stop spending so much time at Renee’s, and hang out at the apartment instead. The couch practically becomes the guest bed, Renee nodding off whilst they’re watching the news in the early hours, or after discussing plans over Thai food, or just plain hanging out.

Even having Renee spending so much time with them feels.... normal. They store a bottle of her favourite whiskey in the bottom cupboard, and Dinah unlaces her boots when she falls asleep, drapes a blanket over her when it’s cold. It’s a distant reminder of her childhood, a twist in her gut sometimes if she thinks about it too hard, but it’s not the same anyway, because Renee is her friend, and Renee’s only weakness is the taste of liquor and the temptation to text her exes.

Dinah realises it’s been years since she had women to call friends.

If it’s weird for her, she can’t even begin to imagine how strange this all is for Helena. On one of the rare occasions that she opens up to them both, she talks of growing up in remote Sicily, lonely, with nobody else her own age, and only the three men who took her in for company. Her life up until moving back to Gotham, as far as Dinah can tell, consisted purely of training, learning to speak multiple languages, and praying to a God she doesn’t really believe in anymore. Dinah’s feelings about her own teenage years are complicated, but she can’t help the profound sadness she feels when she thinks of Helena, growing up all alone, a small fighting machine instead of a child.

She can’t think too hard about how much Helena has grown in the months that she’s known her, how her social awkwardness is starting to fade, how comfortable she’s beginning to act around them both, because if she does, it would mean also admitting to how hard she’s beginning to fall for the woman. And that isn’t something she can do, not whilst they’re living together. Not when so many other parts of Helena’s life have already changed so recently.

(And maybe, okay, if she’s being honest, the fact that it’s been so long since she let anyone into her life, let herself care about anyone in any sort of way that wasn’t just a quick fuck, and the knowledge that they’d never call again, might be a small part of it. Maybe.)

-

When Helena finally gets around to buying a new motorbike, she comes home with two helmets. The image of her on her bike, dressed all in leathers, is hot enough, but when she tilts her head to one side, offering Dinah the other helmet, she thinks she might just lose it.

The soft hum of the bike underneath her, combined with the feeling of her body pressed so tightly against Helena’s, the wind whipping her hair around her shoulders... it’s a sensory overload and Dinah’s not quite sure how she survives that first ride they take together.

From then onwards, they use the motorbike more than Dinah’s car, which is fine by her. Sure, she loves driving, loves her Jaguar to death, but she’s also beginning to love that goofy expression Helena gets when they’re driving super fast and her arms are wrapped tight around Helena’s waist. She loves seeing their helmets next to one another on the table in the hallway.

And yeah, she loves watching Helena out front, smears of oil on her face whilst she tweaks parts of the bike, lost in what she’s doing. But most of all she loves seeing her so passionate about something that isn’t violent. She loves that Helena knows so much about the exact things Dinah’s completely clueless about.

-

By the time they’ve lived together six months, Dinah could fill a notebook with useless information about Helena. It’s embarrassing, really, the number of things she learns about her, whilst still knowing practically nothing about Helena’s past.

She learns that Helena likes herbal tea, but only with honey and a slice of lemon on the side. She always takes the second one from the stack if she buys a newspaper from a street vendor, and always tips more than she should. Helena is almost neurotic in how she organises things in the apartment: books in alphabetical order, toiletries in height order. Even when she does dishes, she organises them by size, cleaning cutlery first and pans last. She never uses the dishwasher, even though they have one, because she doesn’t like how the dishes feel when they come out, doesn’t trust that it cleans them properly.

Every other Saturday, someone from Sicily calls at exactly 10am, and Helena stays on the phone for precisely twenty minutes. Dinah doesn’t ask what they talk about, though Helena never goes into another room to take the call. Afterward, she’s usually in a pretty crappy mood, her temper short. Sometimes she goes for a run, or out on her motorbike. Sometimes she disappears to her bedroom, and for the next hour, all Dinah can hear is her fists pounding against the punchbag hanging from her ceiling. Sometimes, she wordlessly turns the television on and sits in silence for an hour.

Helena wakes up ridiculously early, but will wait until Dinah gets up to have breakfast. She almost always has oatmeal, except on the occasions where Dinah feels like cooking them French toast, or pancakes like the ones Helena remembers from her childhood. Breakfast is the only meal Dinah’s better at making, and it’s one of her truest pleasures in life, getting to see Helena wiping up every last drop of syrup from her plate, and licking her lips afterwards. She had no idea cooking for another person could be so satisfying.

Her absolute favourite moments, though, are the lazy evenings they spend together when they’re not out fighting. They’re few and far between. These are the moments where Helena’s most herself, when she lets her guard down, and will talk about her family, about the few details she remembers about her parents and her little brother. Dinah stores away these pieces of information, pressing them into her mind like secret notes in a journal, grateful for every last snippet of information Helena trusts her with.

She talks, too, about her mom, and about Sionis, but never the years in between. Helena’s a good listener, and it’s a relief to talk about it all with somebody. It’s been years since she let her guard down like that.

Maybe they’re exactly what each other needs. And maybe that’s enough.

-

“Goddamnit.”

“You okay in there H?”

“Fucking... _scirocco_!”

The grumbling is followed by a bunch of clattering, and eventually Dinah closes her magazine and goes to knock on the bathroom door.

“I’m fine!” Helena growls, and Dinah rolls her eyes, pushing the door which is only ajar anyway, and stepping into the bathroom.

Helena’s leaning across the sink, staring at her face in the mirror, a tube of lipstick dumped into the sink, cap off. When she turns to look at Dinah, the smear of red across her mouth makes her look like Harley’s ex boyfriend, and Dinah can’t help but laugh.

“Fuck off!” Helena snaps, then clearly remembers who she’s talking to, and softens, “I don’t understand how to do this.”

Dinah bites her lip, grabs a wipe out of the pack and hands it to her, “yeah, I see that. Here, let me show you.”

Once Helena’s taken the lipstick off - not without grumbling as the pigment is hard to remove - Dinah, sitting on the edge of the counter, reaches for the tube. Taking Helena’s chin in her fingers, she tilts her face so it’s at the right angle, ignoring the way Helena’s breath hitches, and starts to slowly run the colour over her top lip. Their mouth shapes are so different that it takes a lot of concentration to follow the lines of her cupid’s bow, and she can feel her hand shake just at the proximity, Helena’s breath hot against her skin. Her eyes dart up to meet Helena’s before she starts on her bottom lip, and for a second, she sees the molten heat in her dark eyes and she thinks this is it, they’re going to kiss. But Helena looks away, and she forces her attention back to Helena’s mouth. It’s practically torture, but there’s no way she isn’t finishing what she started.

“There, you just gotta...” she whispers, and then smacks her lips together, rubbing them lightly, as if to spread the colour evenly. But Helena doesn’t copy her, just stares at her mouth, and the heat between them is palpable, buzzing with electricity, her hand still cupping Helena’s chin. She could so easily lean forward, press their lips together, finally break that tension that’s been building between them for months. Her thumb strokes over Helena’s chin, and Helena gazes down at her, eyes searching...

Until finally, after what feels like an age but can’t have been more than 30 seconds, Dinah lets go.

“What do you think?” Dinah asks, and if her voice sounds throaty, then it’s not her fault.

Helena is looking at herself in the mirror, and the corners of her mouth twitch into a small smile, their eyes meeting in the reflection. “Thanks.”

Dinah doesn’t ask why she’s putting lipstick on at 2pm on a Thursday, why she doesn’t even leave the apartment once it’s done. She does, however, find herself staring at those bright red lips for the rest of the afternoon.

-

She dreams about Helena more often than she’d care to admit to and sometimes it’s hot and heavy and she wakes up feeling like she has to have a cold shower to wash the thought away, but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s just an extension of the moments they share at home, and the kisses seem to slot in so naturally, the dreams feeling so real that Dinah wakes with the ghost of Helena’s mouth against hers, and it’s all she can do not to act on it.

Sometimes having Helena so close feels like a punishment, but for what she’s not quite sure, and it takes everything in her to just push it aside and concentrate on this friendship they’re building. Because first and foremost, they’re a team, and she doesn’t want to - can’t - fuck that up.

-

Every so often, Harley reappears, usually to dump Cass on them for a few days whilst she does god-only-knows-what.

Which is fine, really, because they both adore Cass, and it’s good to catch up with her, and it’s probably better that she’s not involved in whatever Harley gets up to.

And it definitely doesn’t hurt that Helena becomes this whole other person around the kid. The way she looks after her.... it’s this perfect mix of treating her like a grown up, whilst also letting her be a kid. Dinah knows Cass has never been able to be like that, that no matter how much Harley has good intentions, she’s not exactly parent material. Helena teaches Cass to cook, and lets her help with her bike, and makes sure she doesn’t spend too long in front of the TV. She asks about school, but not in a way that’s intrusive or nagging, and lets Cass show off all the new ‘skills’ Harley’s taught her - make up, and braiding, and how to tie a cherry stem with her tongue. Helena, who grew up learning how to fight, and not how to do anything a normal teenage girl does, learns as much from Cass as she teaches, always following Cass’ instructions with a serious expression and her full concentration.

(Dinah even finds them curled up on the couch together asleep one night when she gets back from a singing gig, and she doesn’t have the heart to disturb them, just quietly turns the television off and goes to her room.)

-

“How’s married life?” Harley asks with a wicked smile, when she finally returns for Cass, and Dinah’s glad that Helena is out of ear shot so she doesn’t have to explain. 

She just flips her off, hoping her cheeks aren’t as flushed as she thinks they probably are.

“Aw, come on now, don’t play coy with me, Birdie. You two pretendin’ you’re not playing house is getting boring,” she puts her hands on her hips, pouts, “come on, spill the beans whilst the kid’s occupied.”

“We’re _roommates_ , nothing else, ok?”

Harley gasps dramatically, “oh my god, they were roommates! Puh-lease, no one’s buying this routine. You two are creaming the Twinkie! Burying the weasel? Locking legs and swapping gravy?”

Pulling a horrified face, Dinah pushes Harley further out of the front door, which only serves to rile her up more. She claps her hands together, jumping around on her ridiculous sequinned heeled boots.

“I _knew it!_ ” she squeals, “is she a total monster in bed or what?”

“We are not doing anything. I mean it. And if you say another fucking word about it, I’ll kick your ass, okay?”

“Wooooow, her rage issues are rubbing off on you. Cute that you think you’d win in a fight. But fine.” She zips her mouth closed, miming throwing the key away. “You both need’a get laid though. Plenty of studies have shown that regular sexual intercourse—“

“Harley...” Dinah growls, and thankfully, mercifully, Cass appears and Harley shuts up.

-

One Saturday, Dinah goes to the kitchen to find the coffee already brewed, a cup already poured for her and waiting on the counter. A sip confirms that it’s exactly how she likes it - the right amount of sugar and creamer - and she hums as she carries it through to the couch, where Helena is on the phone.

“Thanks,” she mouths, smiling, and Helena smiles back - just a little, though it reaches her eyes.

It doesn’t matter that Dinah has no idea what she’s saying, her voice is soothing, and the coffee is perfect, and she’s happy for them to just co-exist like this.

It becomes routine. Even though Dinah has no real sleep schedule, somehow she always manages to emerge from her room to hot coffee, and sometimes half of whatever fruit Helena is having with breakfast, neatly sliced and waiting for her. They don’t talk about it - she knows Helena gets frustrated trying to speak her mind, and Dinah thinks that maybe this is just another language her friend speaks, a language that’s not made up of words but of tiny gestures.

-

As a team, she knows they work well together, had sensed some kind of unspoken bond between them even that first night at the Booby Trap, passing Cass between them, covering each other’s asses without a word. That bond only grows the more time the three of them spend kicking ass together.

It’s different with Helena, though. Dinah can’t quite put a name to it, but sometimes they’ll be working, and Helena will look at her a certain way - only her eyes and mouth visible under that ridiculous mask - and Dinah knows exactly what she’s saying. It’s bizarre to have that connection with someone. Renee jokes that they have a telepathic connection, and Dinah’s not 100% sure she’s wrong.

It’s dangerous. If Helena goes down, Dinah’s rational thought process goes down with her.

They’re fighting a bunch of goons working for one of the city’s main heroin traffickers, only ten of them, no more than they can handle. The storage facility is an old factory in Chinatown, the location Renee got from one of her ‘friends’ (which is usually code for ex-girlfriends). They’d had the element of surprise in their favour, but the gang make up for it in both bulk and weapons.

By now, it’s become more or less routine. Not that that makes it any less hard work, but they at least know what they’re doing, and with the training Helena puts them through every week, Dinah and Renee are in the best shape they’ve ever been. It should be a fairly easy fight.

Except it’s not.

They’re crouching behind a large metal tank of god knows what, trying to work out what to do. They’ve taken out at least five men, but someone must have alerted the rest of the gang, because a bunch more have arrived, and they’ve brought more guns with them.

“Maybe we just get out of here, count our blessings we’re still all in one piece...” Renee says, breathless from running for cover. She pulls a grenade from her belt and tosses it into the space behind her, all of them covering their ears as it goes off.

Helena shakes her head, “they’ll come looking for us somewhere else.”

“I could—“ Dinah starts, but Helena interrupts.

“No. Too dangerous.”

She rolls her eyes. She’s only used the cry twice - that first time when Cass’ life was in danger, and then again a month or so later. That time, when she’d passed out, she hadn’t woken up again for almost twelve hours. They’d decided it was better to not attempt that again, not unless it was absolutely necessary.

Or rather, Helena had decided for her.

“You got a better idea, Crossbow?” Renee asks, counting the rounds left in her gun. They have more ammo, but it’s in the car. “How many arrows you got left?”

“Bolts,” Dinah corrects, and she doesn’t miss the tiny smile that brings to Helena’s face for a split second, before her face scrunches back up in determination.

“Not enough to take all of them,” she admits.

“You think we can get back to the car?”

Bullets start flying behind them, one piercing the metal barricade they’re using, and letting out a hiss of air.

Helena shakes her head, already rounding the tank, crossbow ready, “no. Look, we’ve taken down this many before. We can—“

But before she can finish her sentence, there’s a new round of fire, and they’re all leaping up to take out who they can. Through the haze of smoke, Dinah fires, taking out two men. Helena shoots bolts into three more, Renee throwing another grenade that takes out the remaining men. For a moment, there’s silence, stillness. They round the tank, weapons still drawn, and Helena raises a hand, points to the left of them. Dinah nods.

She’s barely made it a few feet when the gunfire starts again. Helena fires her crossbow once, twice, and then stumbles. There’s a blast of machine gun bullets. Before Dinah can work out what’s happening, all logic is gone and she shouts at Renee to cover her ears, taking a deep breath before letting out the loudest cry she can manage, whilst reaching for Helena.

Everything stills. Everyone goes down.

Dinah sees black.

-

Helena always smells faintly minty, from her body wash. It’s a nice smell, even if it’s not one Dinah would necessary choose herself, her own lotions and scrubs and shampoos mostly fruity and sweet.

The mint is the first thing she notices when she comes to. It’s close enough that she knows Helena’s hovering over her, even before she manages to figure out how she got here and what happened. It takes her another moment to realise that someone is stroking her face, the feeling so soft and tender and _unfamiliar_ that she doesn’t dare move for fear of it stopping.

Her throat is so dry, though, she can’t help it. A cough claws its way out before she’s even opened her eyes, much less sat up, and suddenly the hand is gone from her face, the ghost of it appearing at the small of her back whilst she tries to sit up.

“Here,” Helena murmurs, holding out a glass of water, “drink this and I’ll go make you some tea.”

She wants to argue, but that’s pretty hard to do without a voice.

Fragments start to form a memory in her mind as she listens to Helena moving around the kitchen. She doesn’t remember how she ended up here, in her bedroom, where it’s light outside and the noise of people going about their days is audible even from their apartment on the second floor. They had been at a warehouse. No... a factory. And there had been guns, and more men than they’d anticipated, and...

Helena. Dinah sees Helena go down amongst the smoke and the gunfire and...

“How are you feeling?”

Dinah looks her over. She’s dressed in a loose, sleeveless top, and sweat pants. Her arms are littered with new bruises and cuts, her face grazed along her left cheek, but other than that...

“You were shot?” Dinah manages, before going into a coughing fit.

The cup of tea is set down on the side - chamomile with lemon and honey and a lump of raw ginger - and Helena perches awkwardly on the bed. She’s still not good at the whole _touching_ part of friendship, so it’s a surprise when she starts rubbing Dinah’s back, her touch incredibly gentle, and yet enough to send sparks straight through Dinah.

“I wasn’t hit,” Helena explains to her, once the coughing has mostly subsided, her hand staying on Dinah’s back for a beat longer than it needs to be, “I just stumbled over a casing. I had it under control. You didn’t need to...” she trails off, rubbing a hand over her face, that usual frown of concern evident between her eyebrows. “You’ve been out cold for almost eighteen hours. I thought...”

“I’m ok,” Dinah whispers with a somewhat watery smile. She can see the fear all over Helena’s face, the way she’s staring down at her hands. There’s dark circles under her eyes. Dinah feels a pang of guilt for how much she’s clearly worried about her in the past day.

But there’s something else there, too.

“Montoya says that we both have this problem where we... act without really thinking about the consequences. That it only happens when the other one of us is in danger,” Helena says, her voice strained, “I told her that’s horse shit, but... she says we have to work it out or we have to stop. That’s the ultimatum.” She pauses, and finally, finally, her dark eyes land on Dinah’s face. “She said a bunch of other shit as well but I’m paraphrasing.”

Dinah’s whole body tenses, the blood flowing through her veins suddenly feeling molten, every nerve ending alive and tingling. She can’t believe Renee. There isn’t anything for them to _sort out_ , so why is she wilting under Helena’s concerned scrutiny? Why does she feel like her heart is about to leap out of her chest?

She gulps down a mouthful of tea that’s realistically too hot, but she doesn’t mind the burn. It makes for a good distraction. Eventually, Helena sighs, and the bed shifts as she stands, hands balled into fists at her sides, and her face scrunched.

“You should rest,” she says, and starts out the door. She’s not even made it out when she turns back again. “Call for me if you need anything.”

-

Dinah goes back to sleep, and even her dreams won’t leave her alone. Everything is Helena, the dreams weird and lucid, and when she wakes to find a fresh cup of tea by her bedside - still hot - it just makes it worse.

Much as she hates to admit it, Renee is right.

Something’s gotta give.

-

Helena only ever watches television alone when she’s in a bad mood. Dinah suspects it has more to do with the sound cancelling out whatever’s going on inside her head, than the entertainment value.

Now, she finds Helena sat rigidly on the couch, watching one of the cartoons Cass likes, the one with all the different gem ladies, and the little boy they all look after. Judging from the expression on Helena’s face, it could just as likely be a documentary about toothpaste.

Sighing, Dinah, wrapped in the comforter from her bed, sits down next to her. For a few moments, they sit in silence, the only sounds coming from the television. It’s tense, not like the usual quiet moments they share, not speaking, and Dinah feels the difference in the pit of her stomach.

The show goes to commercials, and she reaches for the remote.

“Leave it.”

Dinah swallows, “we have to talk, H.”

She sees Helena’s jaw tense, notices how her hands start to pick at a non-existent loose thread on her pants. Helena’s never been much of a talker, not without persuasion, and least of all about her feelings. But they have to do this. If it’s this or risk each other’s lives every time they go into a fight... well, that’s not an option.

“I can’t lose you, too.”

Her voice is so quiet, so unlike Helena’s usual stilted but matter-of-fact cadence that it leaves Dinah momentarily speechless, wondering if she didn’t make it up. Her already sore throat clenched as if someone were squeezing her windpipe, and when she spoke, her words came out thick and brittle.

“What I did... was stupid. I’m sorry. I don’t know why...” she shakes her head, swallowing down the emotion. She knows how Helena is feeling right now. It’s the same way she feels every time the Huntress does something reckless and stupid to protect her. They really are two idiots formed from the same cloth. “I thought you were in danger and, Renee’s right, I acted heedlessly. For the same damn reason you wouldn’t let me just use the cry in the first place. The same reason you always insist on going in first, on being the one who stakes the place out for danger before we go in after you.”

Helena shakes her head. “I am in control when I make decisions like that. I do it because you and Renee are...” she pauses, that cute little crease between her eyebrows more defined than ever, “no wait. Shit.”

“What? Weak?! We don’t need you to protect us! We’re a _team_ , H. We signed up for this _together_.”

“But if I don’t go in first then one of you might die and if someone is going to be killed it should be me!” Helena snaps, and from the expression on her face, even she is shocked by the spill of honesty.

Wiping away the slow trickle of a tear, Dinah shakes her head, “how about this - if you fucking _died_ , Helena, I’d have very little left to keep me here, so you need to stop with this martyr act. You’re not dispensable. You think I spent all this time learning every little thing about you to just not give two shits if you...” she trails off, knowing she’s on the verge of crying so hard she can’t speak through it, and needing to calm down. She scrubs her hand over her face, shaking her head.

“You... know more about me than anyone has ever tried to learn,” Helena says, softly, before continuing in a monotone that sounds practised, “The enemy’s biggest weapon is information. The only way to survive is to maintain anonymity, to blend in, to never show your hand. As soon as somebody starts to get to know you, they get to know your weaknesses.”

“I’m not your enemy, Helena.” She hates how feeble her own voice comes out.

Helena shakes her head. “But an assassin’s greatest weakness is feeling. And I... the second I started to feel... I should have known better, and left.”

It feels like every inch of Dinah’s body is on fire, and she tries to swallow down the trickle of hope that rears it’s ugly head at everything Helena is saying, because okay yes, she’s admitting she feels something for Dinah, but the concept of friendship is foreign to her, and they both know that. Helena saying she has feelings... just means that she likes her, that she’s not used to being around people, not used to actually having people to call friends, and nothing more. This whole thing is new to her. Dinah understands that.

“You’re not an assassin anymore,” she says, instead.

Helena tenses and Dinah can practically see her thought process, the way she’s going back and forth in her mind, her brain working too hard. It’s visible in every movement of her brow-line, the way her nostrils flare and her bottom lip disappears between her teeth momentarily. She often talks as though she’s sifting through her thoughts, trying to articulate whatever she wants to say in the most precise way possible, but right now, Dinah thinks that maybe she’s broken her. That maybe she doesn’t know how to communicate what she wants in any of the half a dozen languages she speaks.

Until, finally. “I don’t know how to be if I’m not her.”

Dinah exhales, letting her eyes search Helena’s. She has such big, expressive eyes. Dinah thinks that’s why she wears so much eye make-up, to try and disguise them, to make her look less soft. She could get lost in those eyes on a regular day, but now, with them shining with unshed tears, they’re fiercely soft, liquid in a way that almost breaks Dinah’s heart.

“Yes you do. You’re so much more than her. If you saw yourself the way I do...”

Helena falters, “I wish I believed that.”

There’s a space between them, one that Dinah has purposefully left, but she leans into it now, slowly, moving off the couch to kneel in front of her. Her fingers gently wrap around Helena’s where they rest in her lap, those dark eyes watching the movement wordlessly, and when Dinah lifts their joined hands to her lips, Helena opens her mouth to object, but no sound comes out. Slowly, carefully, Dinah moves closer. She lifts her other hand to Helena’s face, to that strong jawline she’s dreamt of kissing, angling her face down, and cupping her chin. Helena’s skin is so soft, despite everything. Despite the litter of bruises and cuts and scars.

“I’m going to kiss you. Is that okay?” Dinah finally whispers.

Wordlessly, Helena nods, eyes wide, subconsciously licking her lips. Dinah moves slowly, giving her enough time to change her mind, before pressing a small, testing kiss to Helena’s lips. The sound that escapes them - something between a whine and a moan - awakens something molten in the bottom of her belly, and she shifts her body upwards, putting more pressure behind the kiss as she feels Helena’s mouth move against hers.

She pulls back, only slightly, and lets out a deep sigh. Everything they’ve been through has been building up to this moment. Before she can pull back entirely - check Helena’s doing okay - they’re kissing again, Helena’s hands cupping her face with a ferocity and certainty that knocks the wind out of her. Dinah moans against Helena’s mouth, and her lips part enough to let Dinah’s tongue probe, softly, experimentally. She’s holding back, a part of her still believing that Helena is going to stop her any second. Instead, she feels Helena’s short nails along her spine, up underneath her top, and she has to cling to the couch cushion, one hand wrapped in Helena’s hair, to stop herself from losing it.

Eventually, breathlessly, they part again, and Dinah kisses Helena’s chin, her chest heaving, trying to catch her breath. She’s made it into her lap, one leg either side of Helena’s body, and as much as she didn’t think Helena had it in her, there’s a hand holding her ass steady, fingers splayed against the gap between her top and her pants.

“Wow,” Dinah murmurs, and she knows she’s grinning like a fool, but she can’t help it because she feels like she’s been waiting her whole life for this.

Helena nods, the muscles in her throat contracting, and her eyes are somehow darker than ever, oily pools framed by perfect lashes, her eyelids slightly hooded. Her hair’s mussed, and her mouth is soft, fuzzy, lips just slightly swollen, the corner turned up in a smile. She’s breath-taking, and Dinah can’t believe she’s about to say what she’s about to say but...

“We don’t have to... if you’re not ready. We can go slow.”

“No. I want to. I want you to... teach me,” Helena tells her, and she sounds so sure that it sets another fire in Dinah.

And she’s never thought that it would be like this, here, on the couch they argued over in a flea shop, Dinah still wearing clothes from two nights ago, and a kid’s show playing in the background but she’s not about to say no.

-

That night - and a lot of the next morning - she learns a _lot_ of new things about Helena.

For starters, that she wears soft mesh bralets, and underwear that’s surprisingly girly, even if it is plain. That she has plenty of skills but that undoing someone else’s bra is not one of them. That she is ticklish but only along her ribs, and only when Dinah uses her mouth. That there’s a sweet spot between her ear and her jaw which makes her curse, and that she speaks Italian when she comes.

Also that she is _very_ eager to please.

Dinah studies every inch of her body, every scar and birthmark and freckle, every sound that comes from her mouth. She laps it all up. The feeling of Helena’s hands on her - cautious at first, but a quick study - the taste of her on her tongue. The way she treats Dinah’s body like it’s something worth worshipping. She knows there’s only ever going to be more to learn, but that they have time.

She also learns that Helena is never ever going to be able to watch Steven Universe with Cass ever again.

-

“I could write volumes on you, Helena Bertinelli,” Dinah murmurs against her lips, one night when they’re thoroughly exhausted, and extremely happy.

Helena smiles, her eyelashes tickling Dinah’s cheek as she nuzzles into her. She hasn’t opened up any more about her past, but the promise is there, the suggestion that she might one day be able to let it all out. Dinah wraps her arms around her, smiling as they settle in together, allowing herself to drift off to sleep.

The truth is, she’s learnt something about herself, too. That maybe, she is capable of loving, and being loved, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this, and find me on tumblr at @caseysalex.


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